The current taste for Carissimi's secular cantatas has somewhat obscured his sacred music, and Maestro Longhini was struck by the very secular title of a Mass listed among Carissimi's works. Upon investigation he found it was based on themes from the previously composed secular cantata, thus the correspondence of names, if not of intent and genre. Le Istitutioni Harmoniche is an Early Music ensemble named after the famous treatise 'The Art of Counterpoint' published in 1558 by Gioseffo Zarlino.